Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
The part that makes me laugh most about Bennett is that there weren't this many vocal supporters when he was here.
There were a handful of posters that would talk about how he was misused during his time as a Flames player while he was here or that his underlying numbers showed potential (GranteedEV, Dammage, ComixZone, myself, sure there were a couple others too) but for the most part people really didn't see much him in. This was especially the case by the time 18-19 and 19-20 had rolled around.
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I spent entirely too much time (...and apparently still do) debating Bennett's role on this team/how he was misused (hi Lanny), and at the end of the day I don't place much blame on Bennett - and I don't place much blame on the players he got played with. I think the way this Bennett thing played out comes down to the reality that we hired a trio of very bad Head Coaches and they hurt not only Bennett's time here, but I also think they hurt other players who are still here. I think had we hired a good head coach back when Hartley was let go that Sean Monahan would have been developed into a much better 200 foot hockey player and that they wouldn't just allow him to outscore his defensive deficiencies that were visible all along. I feel like the short sightedness of unproven head coaches was a detriment to this team. With those unproven (and bad) head coaches solely focused on the "now" with an extreme tunnel vision I believe veterans who didn't earn spots were given spots. I think it's why we saw guys like Kulak, Lomberg, Lazar (yes, Lazar), and most painfully Bennett end up elsewhere and do better.
At the end of the day you can't hire three bad head coaches in a row and not expect there to be consequences.